Liberty. It’s a simple idea, but it’s also the linchpin of a complex system of values and practices: justice, prosperity, responsibility, toleration, cooperation, and peace. Many people believe that liberty is the core political value of modern civilization itself, the one that gives substance and form to all the other values of social life. They’re called libertarians.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

This evening on Fox News’ "Hannity," Breitbart News Executive
Chairman Stephen K. Bannon, director of "The Hope & the Change,"
David Bossie of Citizens United, producers of the film, and adviser Pat
Caddell appeared to discuss the massive disillusionment of Democrats and
independents with President Barack Obama – and their film, which
details that disillusionment in devastating detail.

The show opened with a promo of former Obama voter after former Obama
voter decrying Obama’s horrible record and their own disappointment
with the Obama administration. “I fear for my children,” says one. “I’m exhausted, and I’m tired,” says another.
The film will premiere on Tuesday at the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

“This is the most powerful documentary I’ve ever seen in my life,”
said Sean Hannity. “There’s no way that anybody who watches this film
can vote for Barack Obama. It’s impossible. You bring us back and walk
us through the whole election cycle.”
Bannon explained that the goal of the film was to “go through the
journey of [the] lives [of Democrats and independents] and go through
the journey of the last four years.” Bossie added, “People bandy about
the Reagan coalition. That’s who these people are. If Republicans can
learn to speak to middle America, these people, they’ll win a
lot of elections.” And Caddell pointed out, “these are people who were
in the middle… but they believed. They invested a great deal of hope…
What is shocking is hearing their own words.”
Bannon pointed out the emotion of the massive wave of 2008.
“President Obama, for a moment in time, had something that was very
unique in American history,” said Bannon. And then the moment was gone,
as "The Hope & The Change" shows.
Caddell explained, “The thing these people wanted was to unite the
country. They wanted to change how politics worked… What they describe,
what you see in the film, how they feel about the country, what they
worry about the future, what they’re going through in their own lives…
[There are moments] when you want to cry. When I wanted to cry… Nothing
was scripted, nothing was programmed.”
“This,” says Caddell, “is the voice of America.”
The media coverage of these people – the disillusioned middle class,
the betrayed Democrats and independents who voted for Obama – has been
egregiously meager. But "The Hope & The Change" shows they’re there.
In fact, they’re everywhere. These were folks who wanted a United
America. And now America is divided. “I believe President Obama’s and
David Axelrod’s strategy of dividing the country… at best, if he does
win, it will be a pyrrhic victory,” Bannon pointed out.
The images of Americans suffering under President Obama are indeed heartbreaking -- Americans cutting out cable,
cutting out restaurants, turning down gifts for their children. This is
the despair of the Obama economy. And The Hope & The Change puts
these stark images before the eyes of voting Americans. “Maybe he just
doesn’t quite understand budgets,” says one woman, “because he hasn’t
had to live within a budget.”
The crowd sizes are down for Obama. And Obama is holding them down.
As Caddell said, the last thing Obama wants is to remind Americans of
the expectations of 2008 – because none of those expectations were
fulfilled. Caddell and Bannon explained that Obama has focus grouped
these people, and he knows that his soaring rhetoric no longer plays.
And so he is only left with a campaign of division.
"The Hope & The Change" will be showing at the Democratic
National Convention just before Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance
speech. It will show at select cities across the country. And, Bossie
announced, the film will have a television distribution deal shortly.
After hosting Bannon, Bossie, and Caddell, Hannity hosted some of the
people featured in the film – the swing voters. Daniel Lopresto said he
was caught up in the moment. “It was a lot of bliss. At least it seemed
it would be.” Lopresto, who owns a small business, says it’s in a
slump. Gerald Hill, an African-American Obama voter, averred, “As
someone who has always voted straight party line, never really had to
deal with certain issues as part of my decision for who to vote for. But
over the past four years, I’m an ordained minister, and over the past
four years, they’ve been trying ones for me… It’s really the same-sex
marriage issue.” Obama voter Amy Alonso was alienated by the
non-transparency of the Obama administration. “He’s not capable or able
to do the things he says he’s going to do now. You can see it in the ads
he runs in his campaign,” she maintained.
The messages all sounded alike: businesses have floundered. The hope is gone. The dream has been shattered.
Hannity asked the panel to raise their hands if they no longer
believed that Obama’s redistributionist economic policy would work. One
woman didn’t raise her hand – not because she thought redistributionism
would work, but because she thought Obama had no idea what he was doing
at all. “He got everybody excited. Everybody was hopeful,” she said.
“And now we’re starting to realize that the change that he promised
didn’t come. What else does he have to promise?”
Hannity also asked the panel about Obama’s mystifyingly enormous debt
spending. Bob Harwood, an Obama voter, summed it up well: “That’s where
I messed up when I was looking at this election. He said all the right
things, but I never asked how he was going to do it.”
Interestingly enough, Hannity asked the panel about Jeremiah Wright
and Bill Ayers – and they had no idea who they were. Only a few members
of the panel thought the President was a radical. “The truth is that if I
don’t know the things that you’re speaking on, I can’t have an opinion
on them,” said Hill. Obama’s radicalism is not what convinced these
swing voters. His failure to produce results did.
"The Hope & The Change" shows that the hope and the change are
gone. And no amount of glitz, glamor, and obfuscation will bring them
back.